


Do it over; do it right

by Ernmark (M_Moonshade)



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: F/F, Groundhog Day AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-04
Updated: 2017-03-04
Packaged: 2018-09-22 21:07:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9625388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/M_Moonshade/pseuds/Ernmark
Summary: Chance is cursed. She doesn't know how, she doesn't know why. All she knows is that there are days that she has to relive over and over and over again until she gets it right.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> JunoNureyev requested a Groundhog Day AU

Chance Sequoyah has robbed this train a dozen times already. The first time around, she killed a man before she made her escape. The second, she spent most of her ride in conversation with him, learning about his hopes and dreams, his family and friends. By the time her stop came around, she understood why he wasn’t supposed to die.

But that didn’t stop the cycle.

She’s done this enough times to know the rules: there’s always something that she needs to do, some goal she needs to accomplish, and then time will resume on its course. The only problem is finding the right task.

The next time around, she talked to another passenger. A banker who fantasized about starting a theater troupe; a girl who was hopeless out east who thinks she can make a life for herself in the parlors of a distant boom town; a boy on the run from anyone who might remember that his parents still think he’s a girl.

Sometimes they die during the heist. Sometimes they come with her. But every morning she wakes up again and it’s still Thursday and the young'uns are still hungry and the larder is still dangerously low on supplies.

And then she spends her ride talking to the would-be school marm. Not just the ride until her stop, the _entire_ ride. She’s so captivated by their conversation that she doesn’t even notice that time has passed until they’re pulling into the Crossroads station and Mary-Anne’s fiancé is ushering her off the train. 

So when Mary-Anne asks her where she’s going, Chance lies and says she’s heading to Crossroads. And when Mary-Anne invites her to join them for dinner, Chance accepts (and hopes to god the oldest kids will be alright making dinner for the rest for one night, just one, and then she’ll be back). 

And she can see it all throughout dinner– how disinterested Mary-Anne is in that Beau fellow, how much more alive she looks when she talks about teaching, or adventure stories, or Chance and her “orphanage”. 

And she doesn’t imagine the spark she feels when their hands touch for the first time– or the look of dismay on Mary-Anne’s face.

“I– I’m sorry,” the teacher says too quickly. “I should go. Beau needs me.”

And she’s gone. 

Chance spends the night crying without regret; come morning, her tears are unshed and it’s still Thursday.

She spends another train ride talking to Mary-Anne, and then another. Every go around, she learns more about this woman who doesn’t know the first thing about her. 

“If you could go away from all this,” Chance asks her. “Would you?”

“Oh, don’t be silly. I’ve got obligations. Beau needs me. And I have responsibilities.”

“Yeah, but if you didn’t. If this was one of those fantasy adventures, and you could just go. If you got shipwrecked or captured by pirates like that Theodosia Burr,” for they had been talking at length about the mystery of the missing woman.

And Mary-Anne giggles. “Oh, wouldn’t that be grand? Terrifying, I’m sure. But how exciting! As a fantasy, of course,” she adds abruptly, and her eyes lose their sparkle again. “You’ll have to forgive me, Miss Sequoyah. My head has a bad habit of escaping into the clouds. I really shouldn’t entertain such silly notions.” 

“D’you mind if I entertain one last silly notion?” Chance asks. “Before we’re serious again?”

“Well, I don’t see why not.”

So Chance kisses her. Soft and quick, and then she pulls away again. 

And Mary-Anne just stares at her, stunned, her fingers rising to touch her lips. 

“I can take you away from all of this,” Chance whispers. “We can have adventures together. We can make a difference together.” 

Mary-Anne glances at Beau– and damn him, he’s still sleeping.

“I… I can’t,” she whispers at last. “I’m so sorry, Miss Sequoya. I just… I can’t. It’s one thing to be captured by pirates, when you don’t have a choice and all. But if I just up and walked away from… from everything? I don’t think I could live with myself. Please understand.”

And without another word she rises from her seat and walks away.

And Chance does understand. 

She understands quite a lot of things, actually.

So when she gets on the train the next morning, she keeps to herself. Mostly. She listens, and she waits, and she plots for a heist that’s gonna be damn near perfect.

Because there might not be any pirates around, but Chance is pretty sure she knows the next best thing.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lettucekitty asked:  
> I love the casual implication in your Groundhog Day fic that Chance has been in multiple time loops. How angsty are the details of how Chance got to learn the rules, exactly?
> 
>  
> 
> Very angsty. We are looking into Chance’s childhood here, so be advised that there’s references to child abuse.

She’s going crazy.

She’s got to be. There’s no other explanation.

She’s lost her dadgum mind. 

Because she’s been here before– not just once, but more often than she can count. 

She knows to reach for the glass just as Missus Blake drops it, so as it won’t shatter. She knows exactly what Mister Blake is going to say before he says it– and she knows that if she whispers the words to herself before they come out of his mouth, he’ll whoop her so fast it’ll make her head spin. She knows that right around noon, old Stardrop is bound to step on a rattler and get herself bit. She knows that if she tries to stop it, the rattler will bite her instead.

She knows what dying of a snakebite feels like. And that dying isn’t a way out of this… whatever it is. 

It might be hell. Why, that’s what Mister and Missus Blake said when she tried to tell them: that she was a witch, and she was goin’ to hell for casting some kind of evil spell. Only she’s not, and she didn’t. She knows it. She’s sure of it.

But she can’t just go on like this.

After a while, she stops giving a hoot about anything anymore. She sleeps in. Sleeps the whole day away, only to get whooped and shouted at and wake up on the same Tuesday morning as yesterday. 

She tries refusing to help out with the farm. Tries to make Missus Blake ask her nicely instead of shoutin’ orders. Tries to sit down and explain to them that she’s tired and scared and hurt and confused.

It always ends the same way. One whooping after another, over and over and over again. 

She tries to do everything exactly right, but they still find fault.

So one Tuesday (how long has it been? Months? A year?) she heaves a sigh.

“If this is hell, then to hell with it.”

It’s before dawn, and she’s meant to be heading to the barn to milk the cows and fetch the eggs inside. Instead she keeps walking, and walking, and walking. She doesn’t stop when she gets tired, or when the moon is huge and bright overhead. She figures she’ll see how far she gets before she wakes up back in bed.

Only she doesn’t.

When she comes to, her skin is sunburnt and her mouth is parched and she’s sore and aching from sleeping on the hard ground.

She’s scared as hell– after all, she’s been living Tuesday so long that she doesn’t know what to do with Wednesday now that it’s here. She’s never been on her own before, neither.

But she knows she’d rather be alone here, right now, than ever go back.


End file.
